Private equity firm Silver Lake is looking to invest close to $1 billion (Rs 7,342 crore) in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail for about 1.8% stake, people with knowledge of the matter told The Financial Times.
Reliance Retail, controlled by Reliance Industries Limited, is aiming to raise up to $5.7 billion for a 10% stake, the people said.
Previously, Silver Lake invested in Reliance Industries’ digital arm Jio Platforms in two tranches of $747 million and $600 million.
Jio Platforms cumulatively raised close to $20 billion from 13 global investors this year. All these investors have also been given a chance to back Reliance Retail, the people said.
Reliance Industries last week agreed to buy the retail and logistics assets of Future Group for $3.4 billion.
Meanwhile, Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp is looking to bid for TikTok’s India assets along with local partners, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
SoftBank already owns a stake in TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd. It has held talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel, the people said adding that while discussions have fizzled since, SoftBank is still exploring options.
SoftBank would almost certainly need a local partner to close a deal that would win government approval.
In another development, Vodafone Idea may raise up to $1.5 billion (Rs 11,013 crore) in equity capital and is in talks with local and overseas investment bankers for running the mandate, people familiar with the matter told The Economic Times.
The firm is in talks with PJT Partners, Prime Securities, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Axis Capital and Kotak Investment Bank, the people said. The appointments could be made in a few days, and there could be as many as five advisers.
It was reported yesterday that Amazon.com Inc. and Verizon Communications are exploring an option to invest close to $4 billion in the company.
The developments come after the Supreme Court gave telcos, including Vodafone Idea, 10 years to pay their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.
Also, Singaporean sovereign fund GIC is in the final round of talks to invest over $100 million (Rs 734 crore) in the second India-focused logistics fund of Warburg Pincus-backed ESR.
The fund has a target corpus of $300 million, people in the know told Business Standard.
Also, food delivery app Zomato is in negotiations to buy Fitso, a startup that provides members access to sport facilities, for close to $20 million (Rs 146 crore) in a cash-and-stock transaction, a person in the know told Moneycontrol.
The development comes two days after Zomato raised $62 million in fresh funding from Temasek.
“Negotiations have reached an advanced stage and the term sheet is being finalised,” the person said.
Last year, Fitso raised $1.5 million in its pre-series A round of funding from Sprout Venture Partners, SRI Capital, IPV Capital, Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah and Helion Venture Partners’ Ashish Gupta.
It has so far raised a combined $1.7 million over five rounds.
